Project Overview
IGS Energy is a billion-dollar national energy provider serving over a million customers across the U.S., with a strong focus on sustainable energy solutions. As rising energy costs drive homeowners to embrace solar power, IGS's solar division has seen significant growth. To support this expansion, IGS identified the need to enhance internal processes and improve collaboration with partner installers and maintenance providers. In response, the Solar Assessment Management app was developed to streamline workforce management and ensure efficient installation and support for IGS’s residential solar projects.
The Challenge
As IGS Energy's solar business grew, the company relied on independent contractors to install and maintain residential systems. Initially, tools like Google Sheets were sufficient for tracking operations, but as the business expanded, these manual processes became inefficient, risking mismanagement and lacked professionalism. Recognizing the need for a more robust solution, IGS sought a software solution to streamline operations, improve contractor communication, and enhance service delivery—positioning the company for future growth and greater success in the competitive solar market.
My Role
As a Senior Product Designer, I was brought on as a contractor to quickly address IGS Energy's urgent need for a skilled professional who could hit the ground running as this project had a dev team spooled up and eager to start. Collaborating closely with Business Analysts, Project Managers, and the development team, my primary focus was to design and deliver a minimum viable product (MVP) that met the immediate needs of the organization. This fast-paced environment allowed me to leverage my design expertise to create user-centric solutions while ensuring a seamless integration with the overall project goals.
Project Definition
Defining Business Objectives
I strongly believe that every project should start with defining clear business objectives. It is a crucial starting point that sets the foundation for success. In this stage, I focused on identifying key business stakeholders and engaging with them to gain a comprehensive understanding of the project’s potential value. Through a series of group and one-on-one meetings, I gathered insights into their visions and expectations for the solution, ensuring my approach would align well with their collective business objectives.
Key Findings:
Getting everything off of Google Sheets and into this new system was a must. It was unprofessional and affecting new partnerships.
They needed to have an MVP developed quickly. They concluded on a 6 month time frame but preferred it to be delivered asap.
The solution needed to work for EPC’s while on dispatch. It needed to be responsive, work well on tablets, and easy to update.
It was also expressed they wanted EPC’s to be able to setup and manage their own users to also help alleviate EPC interactions.
They wanted to have a history or work log, to help alleviate IGS having to take calls and disputes they were having with EPC’s.
Setting up and collecting multiple data points was very important. Operations meet with each partner weekly and having more data points could help them greatly shape their performance and set desired behaviors.
User Research & Analysis
Understanding Current Work Flows & Processes
In this critical phase, I concentrated on throughly understanding IGS Energy’s existing processes and workflows, particularly how teams interacted with service contractors. By meeting with team members across various departments, I gained valuable insights into operational challenges and the overall workflow. This exploration helped identify key pain points and areas for improvement, laying the groundwork for the subsequent user interviews. Understanding these dynamics was essential in ensuring that the new solution would be relevant, scalable and effective in addressing the needs of everyone in the organization.
Defining and Interviewing Core Users
To ensure our design solutions would met the needs of IGS Energy’s diverse user base, I began by conducting an in-depth analysis of the main user types. I identified several key roles, including Clients Admins, Operations, Call Center Representatives, and the main users, the Field Technicians. Each user type brought unique perspectives and requirements.
With a clear understanding of the user types, I implemented targeted efforts to gather insights from each group. I conducted 1-on-1 interviews and held group discussions to better grasp how each role functioned and what they needed in a new system. While I typically involve a broader range of participants and use tools like Dovetail to capture detailed insights, the time-sensitive nature of this project required a more streamlined approach. I limited the interviews to a few representative users and included the Business Analyst (BA) on calls to ensure alignment with business goals and deepen our understanding of user pain points.
Synthesizing the data
After conducting a series of user interviews, I led a collaborative affinity mapping session to synthesize the insights, organizing the findings into key themes, pain points, and user needs, which we prioritized based on relevance to the product’s goals. This process revealed recurring patterns and areas of opportunity, ensuring we addressed both immediate user challenges and broader strategic objectives in the design. The insights directly informed the next steps in the design process, guiding decisions on feature prioritization and design solutions. By aligning the team around user pain points and desires, we moved forward with a clear, data-driven approach that balanced user needs with business goals.
Core Findings:
Centralizing all job details and data into one single app and making it all readily available was paramount.
The solution needed to work efficiently out in the field. It needed to work well on tablets, and easy to update quickly.
The solution must highlight top critical needs, then sort remaining priorities, while also allowing access to other lessor needs.
For the MVP, an invoicing feature was essential. They wanted it early to establish it as a routine part of the new system.
They wanted a detailed history panel or work log to reduce calls and eliminate disputes with EPCs.
It was also expressed they wanted EPC’s to be able to setup and manage their own users to also help alleviate continuous requests.
Collecting multiple data points was crucial. IGS met weekly with management from each partner, and more data would help shape performance and set desired behaviors in these meetings., but until then, they had limited data to work with.
Initial Designs and Ideation
Creating Process Maps to Secure Early Approval
Creating process maps allowed us to collaborate in clarifying future workflows and identifying key touchpoints early in the project. This visual approach facilitated discussions with stakeholders, helping us secure early approval and alignment on project goals. By encouraging input from team members during this ideation phase, we can easily realign our design vision to meet user needs and ensure successful outcomes.
Streamlining Ideation with an Advanced Design System
The product design team at IGS worked closely to develop a robust, advanced design system that played a pivotal role in shaping our design process. Leveraging the MUI component library, we collaboratively built a well-structured framework that enhanced design consistency, scalability, and significantly reduced time-to-delivery across all projects. The system also introduced key efficiencies in development, helping to minimize the accumulation of technical debt.
With this comprehensive design system in place, we were able to ideate more rapidly, eliminating the need to invest valuable time in building traditional wireframes. By leveraging our pre-defined components, including navigation, sidebars, and other essential elements, we could prioritize areas needing ideation while remaining flexible in our mid-fidelity approach.
As concepts were approved, this approach brought us much closer to final deliverables for development, eliminating the need to start high-fidelity design from scratch after wire-framing. This not only saved significant time but was a key factor in our ability to deliver ahead of schedule, exceeding expectations from both management and stakeholders.
Interactive Prototypes
After completing the research and ideation phases, I transitioned into creating high-fidelity prototypes to better visualize and test the concepts. These interactive prototypes provided a realistic, tangible representation of the final product, allowing us to gather more meaningful feedback from users and stakeholders. By simulating the full user experience, I was able to test key interactions, UI components, and design elements in a more dynamic and realistic way, ensuring that the concepts resonated with all of the designated user types.
Dashboard Design: Using Data-Driven Visuals to Influence Behavior
The Dashboard offers a personalized, role-based experience, providing users with key performance insights tailored to user’s specific needs. Whether you’re a Client Admin, Operations Manager, or Field Technician, the content displayed is designed to support the unique tasks and responsibilities of your role. With a focus on data-driven visuals, the dashboard transforms complex metrics into easy-to-understand graphs and charts, enabling users to quickly assess performance, track issues, and make informed decisions at a glance.
For Operations users, the dashboard provides a high-level overview of all partners' monthly progress, with key metrics like open and closed tickets, average days open, and average invoice amounts. Managers can quickly assess performance trends, identify areas needing attention, and drill into partner data for deeper insights. This allows them to optimize partner performance, and influencing desired behaviors.
Quick and Easy Search for Contractors in the Field
To streamline access to essential information, I designed an intuitive responsive interface that helps field contractors stay ahead of priorities by allowing them to quickly search, filter, and easily find their most pressing tasks. The simplified search function allows them to locate relevant work orders in just a few taps, while a dynamic drawer provides easy access to detailed project information—without disrupting their workflow. This seamless process minimizes downtime and empowers contractors to stay focused on their work, no matter where they are.
FSD Details Page: Streamlining Workflows for Contractors
The FSD Details Page brings all job-related information into one unified interface, making it easier for field contractors to manage their tasks from start to finish. This page allows contractors to quickly view critical job information, including work specifics, diagnostic reports, and related tickets. This streamlined approach helps contractors stay organized by providing all the context they need to efficiently complete their tasks, without the hassle of navigating between multiple systems or screens.
The History Panel (on the right) provides an intuitive timeline of each job, showing task completion, ticket updates, and overall work order status. This feature helps contractors track progress while allowing IGS Energy’s team to monitor performance and identify areas for improvement. With detailed insights, IGS can have more informed discussions with contractors, driving accountability and continuous performance improvement.
Shifting User Management Efforts to the Client
As part of the overall project’s goal to improve efficiency for IGS Energy’s internal team, I focused on addressing a key challenge: the frequent annoying requests to add users. I wanted to free up time for their team and pushed tasks to the client wherever possible. With the new User Management screens, internal roles can create groups (partners), who can then create and manage their own users as needed. This self-service functionality reduces bottlenecks, giving clients greater control and ensuring that their teams have the access they need, without waiting for internal support.
Simple and Secure Login with OKTA Integration
The login screen was designed with simplicity and security in mind. We implemented OKTA verification to provide a seamless authentication process, allowing users to easily sign in using their existing credentials from other IGS Energy applications. This integration not only enhanced security but also streamlined access, ensuring that contractors and employees could quickly get to work without unnecessary barriers. The simple, intuitive design minimizes friction, making it easy for users to securely log in, even when out in the field.
Dev Handoffs & User Testing
Dev Handoffs
A development team was in place and ready to start on this project before I was hired. So they were ready to go and needed work immediately from the start. Fortunately for me, I had been in this situation a couple of times before and was able to quickly find them low-hanging fruit so I could put the proper amount of time and effort into starting on design properly.
Throughout the project, I ensured smooth design-to-development transitions by attending daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and leading weekly design review meetings. This collaboration kept the team well aligned and ensured designs were fully flushed out and ready for implementation by the end of each sprint. Regular communication helped us stay in sync and properly address any impactful challenges.
Usability Testing
As sections were getting completed we were continously conducted usability testing with both internal users and field testers. These testing sessions provided critical insights into the user experience, highlighting pain points in navigation, content clarity, and overall usability. Based on this feedback, we made targeted adjustments to refine the product and improve the interface. These iterative refinements, driven by continuous collaboration and user feedback, resulted in a product that was very tailored to the specific needs of the technicians who would rely on it in the field.
